Lisa McShane Art

George Inness, Homeward. 1881. 20" x 30". Oil on Canvas. (with close-up below) At the Brooklyn Museum of Art. This painting is here to represent a large group of paintings I saw in 2009, studied, and will continue studying in 2010: 19th century American luminist paintings. I saw a George Inness exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art in the 1980's that stuck with me. I've long wanted to see more and hoped to see several in New York. But the Met was remodeling their American Wing this year. I discovered this when we trekked through the Egyptian wing to see the 19th century American landscapes and it was closed. Instead - to my complete delight - they had all those paintings stuffed in some old-style glass cases. They were jam-packed against the beige metal pegboard behind glass. Row after row. It was like shopping in a supermarket: you walk down the aisle with paintings stacked one above the other to your left and right. Talk about efficient! And even better, we went t...

Pieter Bruegal the Elder. The Harvesters. 1565. Oil on Wood. 46.5 x 63.25. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1996 my husband and I spent several weeks in the Czech Republic and Poland and on the way back to the Frankfurt Airport, detoured through Vienna. We spent several intensely happy hours in the Kunsthistorisches Museum*, including a long stint in a room with Bruegals. We sat and looked at Hunters in the Snow for the longest time. It's a deeply moving painting. It's also one of six. I've seen five. *OK yes, one of those hours was spent in the cafe eating a delicious layered torte mit schlag. And coffee.

Jacob Lawrence, the Migration Series. "The factory owners had to find new workers to replace those who were marching off to war." At the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. I've always loved the abstraction and color of Jacob Lawrence's art but didn't know about the powerful migration series until I ran into the odd numbered panels at the Phillips Collection. The series consists of 60 panels painted in 1941. The odd numbers are displayed at the Phillips, the even numbers are owned by the MOMA. The images and story are powerful and I was inspired by his process of conception and planning. He planned the paintings as a series in advance to tell the story, his wife prepared the surfaces and Lawrence painted them in a series, working on several at once. He tells the entire story of the great migration: life in the south, lynchings, the difficulty of moving, the circumstances people found in the north. Here's the website for the series at the Phillips: http://w...

Stephen Hannock. 'Kaaterskill Falls for Frank Moore and Dan Hodermarsky (Mass MoCA#11)', 2005. Acrylic, alkyd and oil glazes with collage elements on canvas. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2005 I saw a Stephen Hannock painting at the Met for the first time: "The Oxbow, After Church, After Cole, Flooded, Green Light (Flooded River for the Matriarchs: Elizabeth and Agnes Mongan) ", 96 x 144 inches, polished oil on canvas, 1999. I was thrilled and deeply moved. I began studying the work of the Hudson River painters from the 19th century to understand Church and Cole. I looked forward to seeing the Oxbow again. When we visited the Met in February the Oxbow was sadly not on display but this one was and it's beautiful. Up close the writing is personal and interesting and from a distance the painting is luminous. You can see my husband bent down to read the details at the bottom. The painting pictured here has interesting collage elements and writing, including i...

My daughter and husband at MOMA A few days ago a journalist and professor listed her 5 favorite books of 2009 on Facebook. Fantastic idea. I jotted them down for my reading list and immediately began thinking about my 5 favorite paintings of 2009. This was a good year for art for me. I returned to painting full time, established and kept a fairly disciplined studio habit, and painted a number of paintings. I put together my website, this blog, an email and mail list, had a show and sold paintings. All good. I visited museums and saw great art. One of my painting professors (yes, the one who told me I had to paint 100 paintings) told me once that you have to see great art to make great art. She regularly flew to DC just to go to museums. That's inspiring! In February I went to New York and visited the Met (3 times!), the Cloisters, MOMA, the Guggenheim and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In June I visited my daughter near DC and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barnes Founda...

Winter Highway at Alger. Oil on Canvas. 18" x 22". This is a stretch of highway in the Chuckanuts, near my home. To me this area between Blanchard and Lake Samish is one of the loveliest parts of I-5. It always thrills me to drive through there, especially when the fog swirls through the hills by the lake.

December Pears. Oil on Gessobord. 5" x 7". Bosc pears have the more toned down look of winter about them. I struggle with painting these subtle fruits, never certain about how best to paint the foreground/background to make them shine. I do love how pears are rarely upright - they often lean towards each other on the windowsill.